• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.180-189
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• 2023

Objectives: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to a global shortage of medical resources; therefore, we investigated whether COVID-19 impacted the quality of non-COVID-19 hospital care in Korea by comparing hospital standardized mortality rates (HSMRs) before and during the pandemic. Methods: This retrospective cohort study analyzed Korean National Health Insurance discharge claim data obtained from January to June in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020. Patients' in-hospital deaths were classified according to the most responsible diagnosis categories. The HSMR is calculated as the ratio of expected deaths to actual deaths. The time trend in the overall HSMR was analyzed by region and hospital type. Results: The final analysis included 2 252 824 patients. In 2020, the HSMR increased nationwide (HSMR, 99.3; 95% confidence interval [CI], 97.7 to 101.0) in comparison to 2019 (HSMR, 97.3; 95% CI, 95.8 to 98.8). In the COVID-19 pandemic zone, the HSMR increased significantly in 2020 (HSMR, 112.7; 95% CI, 107.0 to 118.7) compared to 2019 (HSMR, 101.7; 95% CI, 96.9 to 106.6). The HSMR in all general hospitals increased significantly in 2020 (HSMR, 106.4; 95% CI, 104.3 to 108.5) compared to 2019 (HSMR, 100.3; 95% CI, 98.4 to 102.2). Hospitals participating in the COVID-19 response had a lower HSMR (HSMR, 95.6; 95% CI, 93.9 to 97.4) than hospitals not participating in the COVID-19 response (HSMR, 124.3; 95% CI, 119.3 to 129.4). Conclusions: This study suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic may have negatively impacted the quality of care in hospitals, especially general hospitals with relatively few beds. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is necessary to prevent excessive workloads in hospitals and to properly employ and coordinate the workforce.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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• v.22 no.10
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• pp.57-66
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• 2022

The aim of the article is to investigate socio-political processes in Ukraine on the basis of institutional and behavioral approaches, in particular their regulatory and informational support. Methodology. To determine the nature and content of sociopolitical processes, the following approaches have been used: 1. Institutional approach in order to analyze the development of Ukraine's political institutions. 2. The behavioral approach has been used for the analysis of socio-political processes in Ukraine in the context of political behavior of citizens, their political activity which forms the political culture of the country. Results. The general features of the socio-political situation in Ukraine are as follows: the formed model of government, which can be conditionally described as "presidential"; public demand for new leaders remains at a high level; the society has no common vision of further development; significant tendency of reduction of real incomes of a significant part of the society and strengthening of fiscal pressure on businessmen will get a public response after some time. Increasing levels of voice, accountability, efficiency of governance and the quality of the regulatory environment indicate a slow change in the political system, which will have a positive impact on public sentiment in the future. At the same time, there has been little change in the quality of Ukraine's institutions to ensure political stability, the rule of law and control of corruption. There are no cardinal changes in the development of the institution of property rights, protection of intellectual rights, changes in the sphere of ethics and control of corruption. Thus, Ukraine's political institutions have not been able to bring about any change in the social-political processes. Accordingly, an average level of trust and confidence of citizens in political institutions and negative public sentiment regarding their perception and future change can be traced in Ukraine.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.3 no.5
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• pp.548-574
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• 2009

Personal information (hereinafter referred to as "PI") infringement has recently emerged as a serious social problem in Korea. PI infringement in the public and private sector is common. There were 182,666 cases of PI in 2,624 public organizations during the last three years. Online infringement cases have increased. PI leakage causes moral and economic damage and is an impediment to public confidence in public organizations seeking to manage e-government and maintain open and aboveboard administration. Thus, it is an important matter. Most cases of PI leakage result from unsatisfactory management of security, errors in home page design and insufficient system protection management. Protection management, such as encryption or management of access logs should be reinforced urgently. However, it is difficult to comprehend the scope of practical technology management satisfied legislation and regulations. Substantial protective countermeasures, such as access control, certification, log management and encryption need to be established. It is hard to deal with the massive leakage of PI and its security management. Therefore, in this study, we analyzed the conditions for the technical protection measures during the processing phase of PI. In addition, we classified the standard control items of protective measures suited to public circumstances. Therefore, this study provides a standard and checklist by which staff in public organizations can protect PI via technical management activities appropriate to laws and ordinances. In addition, this can lead to more detailed and clearer instructions on how to carry out technical protection measures and to evaluate the current status.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.78-89
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• 2004

Background : A report published by the National Institute of Toxicological Research (NITR) in January 2004 about toxic hepatitis in Korea contained the result of analysis on 55 cases of severe toxic hepatitis from 7 university hospitals for 8 months. NITR claimed that the extrapolated annual frequency of severe toxic hepatitis in Korea was 1904 cases per year. They also claimed that the most frequent etiology of severe toxic hepatitis were herbal medications and similar plant preparations (61.7%), contrasted with traditional therapeutic preparations and healthy foods (29.1%). I have investigated that report to be certain of the result because it is a very important subject for public health and society in Korea. Results : The NITR report has too many problems to have faith in its results. They include the following: 1. The report uses only 55 cases to estimate annual prevalence rate of severe toxic hepatitis in Korea. 2. There was a large regional preponderancy in the NITR report (2 cases in Seoul from a population of 10.17 million, 19 cases in Gwangju from a population of 1.4 million) 3. There was another preponderancy that selected much fewer cases caused by western medication (9.1%) than other reasons. 4. The NITR report used a modified scale than that officially recognized to diagnose toxic hepatitis. 5. There was a mistake using the scale to adapt the right indications. 6. They collected cases before beginning the study, although it was a prospective study. There was also not any questionnaire or other materials concerned with alcohol, drugs, or history of past liver disease. Conclusions : NITR is one of the important official arms of the government of Korea. Nevertheless, there is a severe problem in validity because of selection bias, uncertain accuracy, and insufficiency of raw materials in the report. Therefore it seems incorrect to generalize the results of the report and there is a lack of confidence in it as a national study publishing by the NITR.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.43-62
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• 2004

The present study reviewed the meanings of mediation and the roles of mediators, and examined the necessities of online mediation system, prerequisites for the settlement of the system, foreign cases of promoting online mediation and the current state of online mediation in Korea. It also identified problems in the mediation system in Korea and, based on the analysis of problems, discussed directions for the development of Korean mediation system in broad perspective. Directions for the development of Korean online mediation system suggested in this study can be summarized as follows. Firstly, the government must make an unsparing investment in order to activate online mediation system in Korea. Secondly, from the aspect of online mediation procedure, it is necessary to introduce online mediation system in combination with online seal system or certification marks. Thirdly, the judicial circle must take an amicable attitude toward ADR system and, furthermore, it is necessary for the court to be active in introducing various ADR systems. Fourthly, it is necessary to establish an integrated mediation system for the efficiency of mediation and cost saving. Fifthly, mediators must be provided with systematic and exhaustive periodical retraining programs. Lastly, it is necessary to help people to recognize that mediation system is a better service than other forms of dispute resolution procedure and particularly to enhance users' confidence in online mediation through advertising its advantages and safety. Moreover, in order to make e-commerce-related online dispute resolution available to everybody, it is necessary to overcome language barriers by establishing perfect service systems including automatic translation system in the governmental dimension.

• Korean Journal of Legislative Studies
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.5-38
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• 2018

A seismic change is under way in diplomatic topography surrounding the Korean Peninsula. A new dynamic is being generated that could lead to a breakthrough in the nuclear stalemate and to an end of hostility between the two Koreas. Moon Administration's bold and creative foreign policy, which is alleged to place South Korea in the "driver's seat", is probably responsible for what is happening on the Korean Peninsula. However, on the other hand, Moon Administration's foreign policy shows a lot of continuity with foreign policy of previous conservative governments. In particular, the Moon government's emphasis on the vitality of the ROK-US alliance and its commitment to close coordination with the US in dealing with nuclear issues of North Korea is the hallmark of the continuity in South Korea's foreign policy. Emphasizing and sharing the notion of the continuities in foreign policy could contribute to social integration by garnering bi-partisan support. It could also spawn sense of stability, predictability, and confidence to diplomatic counterparts in other countries. And it could help avoid the negative effects of expectation-reality gap in the event that the outcome of all the diplomatic endeavor falls short of expectation held by citizens.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.13 no.7
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• pp.311-321
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• 2013

Health is an essential element of human living and participation in society. Due to its significance, government tries to maintain the healthy life of tis people by providing health care and enhancement systems that focus on health welfare. Despite such efforts, there is still a loophole in the public system. The health problem in socially disadvantaged people, especially single mothers, becomes the cause of poverty, and the poverty again results in the poor health conditions. That is why the private sector became interested in this health issue. In this case study about the participants in the healthcare support programs for single mothers in the private sector, their experience and change related on participation in the programs were investigated in depth. As results, the following significance and quantitative performance in supporting the health right for single mothers were explored. Since single mothers could not have cared for their health because their duty for not only parenting but also family's living, th participants thought that they attained good fortunes and their own social networks. Moreover, their life attitude changed to active and their family relationship was also improved as they got out of ambiguous anxiety of health and attained self confidence.

• The Journal of Fisheries Business Administration
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• v.36 no.3 s.69
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• pp.89-117
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• 2005

Currently, the tax - exempted vessel fuel is provided for commercial fishing in order to increase the competitive power of fishery production thorough the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives. The National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives should predict the exact amount of fuel consumption for fishing every year to request the fuel from the government. Unfortunately, there is no sophisticated model to predict the tax - exempted vessel fuel consumption. In 2003, the consumption of the tax- exempted vessel fuel was only $25.1\%$ of the estimation amount by the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives. This causes an inefficiency in the petroleum management. Moreover, we need some data such as the annual average fishing hours, fishing days and fishing behavior to adopt a new policy regarding fishing. Up to now, the data have been obtained by survey with response in the fishery field. In the most case, we have a small number of data because we spend so much time and money consuming for collecting fishing data. As a result, the level of confidence of the data is associated with the sample size and normally low. In order to achieve more accurate data, we need to develope an efficient method for collecting fishing data. In this research, we proposed a new method to predict the tax- exempted vessel fuel consumption more exactly. The prediction results from the proposed method has been compared with the results from the current method. According to the results in this research, the method proposed here produced much better accuracy than the current method. In addition, we also proposed in the paper for collecting fishing data of the annual average fishing hours using the tax - exempted vessel fuel consumption and the gasoline consumption of vessel engine. The fishing data obtained by using the method proposed in this research could be much more efficient and accurate because it doesn't need to estimate from survey sample data.

• Journal of The Korea Institute of Healthcare Architecture
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.7-15
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• 2017

Purpose: The Korean government has implemented a Barrier Free Certification System since 2008 to create a secure and convenient environment for the socially disadvantaged. The drastic increase in the number of BF-certification facilities is expected due to the revision of the system and increasing the number of certification institutions. An analysis of individual evaluation items needs to be made for the BF-Certification with public confidence. Method: Korean standard, International Standard(ISO/FDIS 21542, 2011), German Standard(DIN 18040-1, 2010), Austrian Standard(${\ddot{O}}NORM$ B 1600, 2017) and Swiss Standard(Norm SIA 500 / SN 521 500, 2009) were investigated and analyzed. A comprehensive improvement plan is proposed by comparing details of the aforementioned standards and the evaluation items of BF-Certification. Results: Many problems arise in applying existing Barrier-free standards due to changes in population structure, environmental change and the use of powered wheelchairs. International standards are being improved to solve these problems. The korean standards also require improving of the Barrier Free Law and Certification System, which reflect these trends. In korean cases, standards such as the size of the doors (width and height), the Unobstructed Manoeuvring Space and Clear Space at the Latch side of the Door are required to improve standards in accordance with international standards. In addition, the expression of laws and evaluation items of BF-Certification should be clearly defined. And the application of visual contrast standards for the enhancement of perceptions presented in international standards should be considered. Implication: Barrier Free related legal standards and evaluation items of BF-Certification that are used in Korea are required to be revised in consideration of social and environmental changes. Comprehensive improvements should be made through detailed review.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.68-79
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• 2022

Objectives: This study investigated associations between ethnicity and malaria awareness in East Nusa Tenggara Province (ENTP), Indonesia. Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted upon 1503 adults recruited by multi-stage cluster random sampling. A malaria awareness questionnaire was used to collect data, according to which participants were classified as aware or unaware of malaria. Logistic regression was applied to quantify the strength of associations of factors with malaria awareness. Results: The participation rate in this study was high (99.5%). The participants were distributed relatively evenly among the Manggarai, Atoni, and Sumba ethnicities (33.0, 32.3, and 30.2%, respectively). Malaria awareness was significantly different amongst these groups; it was most common in the Manggarai ethnicity (65.1%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 59.9 to 70.3) and least common in the Sumba ethnicity (35.0%; 95% CI, 27.6 to 42.4). The most prominent factor influencing the malaria awareness in the Sumba and Manggarai ethnicities was education level, whilst it was socioeconomic status (SES) in the Atoni ethnicity. The likelihood of malaria awareness was significantly higher in adults with an education level of diploma or above (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 21.4; 95% CI, 3.59 to 127.7 for Manggarai; aOR, 6.94; 95% CI, 1.81 to 26.6 for Sumba). Malaria awareness was significantly more common amongst high-SES adults in the Atoni group (aOR, 24.48; 95% CI, 8.79 to 68.21). Conclusions: Low education levels and low SES were prominent contributors to lower levels of malaria awareness in rural ENTP. Interventions should focus on improving malaria awareness to these groups to support the Indonesian government's national commitment to achieve a malaria elimination zone by 2030.